“It must be done.”
“Am I your prisoner now?” Yora could feel his voice cracking. “Am I your enemy?”
“I’ve been asking myself that question for a long time, friend.”
Yora pulled himself away. “Maybe I should’ve been. I should’ve stopped you before you had the chance to—”
“I amchancellor. I speak for the realm.”
“You speak for yourself.”
Seikiyo went back to his book, furiously flipping pages as if they’d give him succor.
“You think you’ll find your answers there?”
Seikiyo gave a little laugh. Turned to the glow of his lamp, a single, ghostly flame. It danced with each breath. “I tried to do some good in this, Yora. I did what I had to do…” A brittle smile passed his features, fleeting as a ghost. “Just like you.”
“And what’s that?” Yora pushed against the line of guards. “We fight in service of the empire, not for our own power!”
Seikiyo shook his head. “I understand that, poet. Better than you.”
“Listen to me!”
He turned from Yora now. “Get out.”
Yora left in a hurry. He expected to be stopped – Seichi’s men had taken the palace – but no one stood in his way. The fact that they allowed him to go was more unsettling than any threat.
I’m out of time, he thought.Next will be an arrest.Ashihara lay surrounded by the Keishi. His son would be raised in a Keishi home, controlled by the Keishi chancellor and the regents on their payroll.
Everything Yora feared had come true.
It was inevitable.Everyone had said so, but I thought I could change it. I thought I’d find a way. And now?
Now there were guards outside the gate. A Keishi soldier in a half-helm, butterfly emblems on his sleeves.
“I have orders to prevent anyone from leaving the palace,” the young man said.
“Good.” Yora nodded without breaking stride, and punched the man in the throat, passing the gasping body to the guard post, where he collected his things. He found his sword, the Falling Star, in its scabbard on a mount.
It won’t be long now.
So he left. Down the empty path, cold cutting through his coat. He’d nearly reached his horse when he heard her.
“Teacher.”
Yaeko, his best student, stood behind him, a fury of betrayal in her eyes.Not this, he thought.Not now.
“I didn’t want it to be like this,” he said, voice catching. The words echoed in his mind, sent back to him through air cold as chips of ice and sharp as laughter.
“Is it true?”
Yora shook his head. “It’s complicated, Yae…”
“Complicated?Complicated?”
He went to her. No words would be enough. No words would tell the truth of how he felt. Not now, not anymore. His brother fought against this, once, and was thrown down. His family was scattered to the wind.
And I was left picking up the scraps.
